


the elephant in the room

by theclaravoyant



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: 5x12 The SafeHouse, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Mild Angst, canon compatible, missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 23:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16028345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: Jake can tell something is bothering Kevin. Unfortunately, some things are more than one pep talk can handle.





	the elephant in the room

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write something about 5x12 for a long time, and this isn't the end from me on it, but I hope you like it. I'd just like to apologise to Kevin in advance

“… and see, in this bit he reminds me of -“

Almost too late, Jake remembered who he was talking to and sat back down again, drilling his eyes into the screen. They were watching _Lethal Weapon,_ one of the few non-Nicholas-Cage movies he had brought along, and needless to say Murtagh had some similarities with people in his life… Some of whom Kevin would probably not appreciate him mentioning at this particular moment in time.

“No-one,” Jake insisted weakly. _Nailed it?_ “He reminds me of no-one.”

“It’s okay, Peralta,” Kevin reminded him, a little exasperatedly. “I’ve seen this film before. I see the resemblance. Your commentary was actually providing an interesting meta experience, if an incessant one. There’s no need to step on eggshells here. I miss Raymond, of course I do. If I didn’t there’d be something wrong, would there not?”

Jake pressed his lips together. He was all for ignoring emotional crises until they exploded and crisis-ed all over the place, but he had a feeling Crisis Mode looked a little different for Holt or Kevin than it did for him. He also had a feeling that this - that watching cult classic action movies with a veritable stranger, slumped hideously far down in his seat so as to be obscured from the windows, and hugging a cushion because he was so devoid of human contact, might just be approaching Crisis Mode for Kevin. The man could by now quote Die Hards one through three with very little prompting, which would have been cause for celebration in Jake’s mind under ordinary circumstances, but now? It was just one more arrow pointing at the elephant in the room.

Clearing his throat, Jake lifted the remote and paused the movie.

“… Isn’t there?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kevin insisted. “I’m fine. Let’s continue.”

Jake adjusted his seat to face Kevin inescapably.

“I’m serious, man,” he pressed. “If you look me in the eye and tell me there’s nothing up between you and the Captain I’ll drop it right now. Just say the word. Come on.”

Kevin glared indignantly for a few seconds, and then gave up. With a sigh, he tossed the cushion aside and leaned forward to massage his temples.

“I don’t know,” he groaned. “I do miss him. Very much. But I’m also… angry with him. And confused. I feel like he never tells me anything anymore, I don’t even know why I’m _here,_ let alone how he feels about it, or, or… then there’s other things as well.”

“Like Gertie?”

“What about Gertie?”

“Nothing…” Jake glanced toward the window. _Oh, Captain, what are you doing?_ He swallowed his doubts - after all, it wasn’t really his business, was it? “I just meant… being apart. It’s been hard on you guys your whole relationship. That’s why you bought Gertie, right?”

“That’s true,” Kevin agreed, and Jake’s relief at not being caught out was short-lived, as Kevin sighed heavily. “Night shift was especially terrible. We were living in the same _house_ and I barely saw him.”

“I thought you guys, uh… made up, about that?” Jake posited. He doubted a dramatic retelling of the _BONE????_ Incident would go over well with this crowd. Still, a tiny laugh when Kevin gave him a quizzical sort of a look gave him away.

Kevin grimaced. “Oh, don’t be disgusting.”

“Come on!” Jake pleaded. “It was cute. We’re rooting for you guys, that’s all. Oh, my god, I said rooting. I’m so sorry. No I’m not. I stand by it. But sorry about the boning thing. I mean. Nothing.”

Kevin shook his head as Jake backtracked, but at least now he was smiling. For a little while.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “It hasn’t been all bad. I just wonder, sometimes, if there’s more we could be doing… _not_ like that. There is something ‘up’ between us. But Raymond won’t talk about it. That night he let Amy come over, I thought at least then we’d get some time, but he shut the door in my _face._ All I wanted to do was ask him to stay. To just… choose me, just once, in all of this. I mean, if we don’t have that, what do we have? What is the point of love, without that?”

“Woah.”

It was all Jake could say, for a little while, as he waited for it all to land. It landed all too well - after all, it was not as though Kevin could sweep out of the room with any degree of dignity, and he seemed too profoundly pained to drag himself out. He just stared with a strange sort of longing at the frozen screen, and ate a piece of popcorn, and it was the saddest Jake had ever seen anyone eat popcorn. He had definitely delved too far for his own comfort, which meant he was probably twenty thousand leagues outside of Kevin’s comfort zone ( _hey look, a literature joke_ ), but there was no way to right things except to see them for what they were.

“That sucks,” he said. “I’m serious, that really sucks, man. And it blows.”

“At the same time?”

“Absolutely. That’s how we hip young thangs do.”

Kevin closed his eyes and groaned, leaning back against the couch cushion as if the modernised version of the English language itself had set out to irk him personally. That was a little more like the Kevin Jake knew, which meant this thing was salvageable, but he had one more little moment of sincerity to slip in there before he worked the jokes.

“Did Holt seriously not tell you why you’re here?”

Kevin sat up, and looked toward Jake with a frown creasing his eyebrows.

“I mean, I know about Seamus Murphy,” he explained hesitantly. “I know that he’s dangerous, apparently, and there’s some… mission moving in on him. Raymond said that because he was involved in the case, Murphy might lash out. I get the feeling that’s not… the whole truth.”

“You feel right,” Jake agreed. He took a deep breath, and let it go with a sigh. “It’s because of me. Sort of. Well, me and Rosa. We were framed for this string of bank robberies, and then Murphy offered the Captain information that could get us out of jail, but it was for a price. He took the deal, but Murphy hasn’t asked him to pay up yet. I think Holt… the Captain… Raymond? No. Whatever. He’s just worried because you’re in danger because of something he’s done. Murphy is a _super_ bad dude. He’s killed _three_ witness _in_ WitSec. He doesn’t mess around. All this ridiculous… commando crawling, and stuff? Sure, it may be a little much, but if it helps… it’s only because the Captain _is_ choosing you. He’s only being so protective because he loves you.”

“Hm.”

Rationally, that made a lot of sense, Kevin reminded himself. Of course his husband only wanted to keep him safe. But then, why all the secrecy, why the absence, why the mistrust? Why this pain in his heart that could not be dislodged, or soothed, or ignored no matter how hard Jake tried? Why did he feel like a dupe, like a bargaining chip, like somebody who loved him wouldn’t have made that choice in the first place at all?

“I suppose I cannot begrudge him that.”

Carefully placed words. Not a lie. But not a cure.

_All I wanted to do was ask him to stay._

_What is the point of love, without that?_

Kevin couldn’t say he was familiar with the pain of heartbreak. He had been very fortunate in his life, at least when it came to romance. They had been few and far between, but they ran deep into his very soul and he had never imagined them ending. This, ending. He hadn’t even meant for the thought to occur, not like that, and as soon as it did a white hot agony lanced through his chest. It was all he could do to stammer -“If you’ll excuse me, Jacob,” and commando crawl away.

Jake’s heart sunk as Kevin disappeared into the next room. Crisis Mode was well and truly upon them. The elephant was not only in the room, it was stampeding wildly through the Captain and Kevin’s life and smashing everything in sight, just like Kevin had when he’d upended the popcorn and carved a hasty escape path through the mess. Jake was still holding the remote, but watching _Lethal Weapon_ for the umpteenth time seemed less than fruitless now.

“Yay,” he cheered halfheartedly to himself, “for talking about our feelings!”


End file.
